a rose for mortal souls
by margaritta
Summary: Every night he vowed not to give in to her, and every night he failed. / or: Harry dreams of Bellatrix, and wishes with every ounce of his willpower that he could stop. -— Harry/Bella, dub!con elements


**a rose for mortal souls**

_Jesus is risen, it's no surprise - even he would martyr his mama to ride to hell between those thighs  
>the pressure is building at the base of my spine, if I gotta sin to see her again then I'm gonna lie<em>

― puscifer, rev 22:20

* * *

><p>It was an hour past midnight, and the bedroom was illuminated only by a small candle, burning weakly in flickering, halting gasps. The shadows it cast on the cracked, peeling paint of wall would remind him of the monsters from the tales he used to read as a child, if he bothered to look at them long enough.<p>

He took a deep breath, his fingers clutching the sheets ― rough and cold against his skin. His eyes were heavy and his whole body ached, but he refused to sleep. If he were to sleep, to turn himself over to the merciless hand of dreams, _she _would come.

He swallowed down a lump in his throat and stared at the empty ceiling, trying with all his might to think of something, _anything_, other than her.

And as always, he failed.

She danced through his dreams like a demon, her skin as white as a moonbeam and her eyes like black fire. It was not the wanted woman who knelt at the Dark Lord's feet and tortured innocent children with glee whom he saw while caught in the cage of dreams, but the woman of sin. A rose with black petals spattered with blood, and thorns that cut like kitchen knives.

She came to him every time he closed his eyes, the winding mark on her left forearm taunting him, mocking him, even as she placed her hands upon his flesh and brought her mouth down to his.

In his dreams, she burned. Her skin was like fire, searing him when he reached out and touched her. And oh, how he touched her. He welcomed her with open arms, even as she burned, her hair a curtain of ebony scented silk against his skin. He made love to her, feeling her body writhe beneath his and watching, mesmerized, as her eyes closed and her blood red lips parted in ecstasy. She was beautiful. Perfect. Her body was a temple of pleasure and passion, an altar for the unholiest of worships.

And she knew it.

She tormented him. Her nails, sometimes black as night, sometimes crimson like her lips, scratched fervent patterns on his body, her lips breathed devilish prayers against his burning skin. She pleasured him with her hands, her mouth, her body. She was his ultimate sin and he held her to him her like a lover, his own mistress of iniquity and pathos. He damned himself in her arms each night, without a care in the world.

He did not know what name he called her in these dreams. Whatever he breathed into her ear at the peak of his passion he could not recall upon waking. But it was not the name of the murderer, the heartless woman who loved an even more heartless man (a man that wasn't him), that much he knew. In his dreams, she was not that woman.

He would not give in to her this night, he told himself, even as he realized his forehead was covered by a thin sheet of sweat. Her face already haunted him in waking hours, sneering at him behind broken glass and through yellowing newspapers, vulpine and alluring.

But he could never help himself.

She was the ultimate sin, a tribute to immorality and decadence, a demon among women. She was a a creature of forbidden trespass, Eve's offering made flesh, laughing in the face of God with her very existence.

And yet he wanted her.

He wanted her in ways that pained him. The night was cold but his body sweated ― if she came to him he could not turn her away. He would let her be his damnation and his salvation.

In the dim candlelight, he dreamed of her without sleeping. And even then she was flawless, a pale marble perfection made of angels' and demons' wings. But her skin ― he knew her skin must be cold, like her heart.

He was willing to warm her until she burned like he did.

If only she would have him.


End file.
